Can someone give me detail on what exactly a med-surg nurses duties are?

Laughs-a-lot, RN · Jan 10, 2009

I've been an RN for 2 yrs and done med-surg the whole time. Good experience, but I worked this floor for 2 yrs before graduation as an aide. We get patients that are pre-op, post-op, and medical we also do telemetry on my floor. We get the detox patients even though I feel that they should go to a hosp that has a specific detox floor or program. Although I think that if you want to go into a certain field such as OB, Ortho, etc start out there. If you want to go into ICU or ED, this may give you some experience, but again they will orient you and I'm sure charting etc is different, and you will have to re-learn some things. I guess it depends on what you want to do and how comfortable you feel to begin with in your skills

chicookie, BSN, RN · Jan 10, 2009

keep your patient alive...........

Moneypitt · Jan 10, 2009

Everything from feed, bathe, clean c-diff bottoms, to CPR, trach care, ng tubes, peg tube feeds, post op, turps, orif's, detox, colon preps. If your floor is run on the cheap you will draw blood, pass out and collect food trays, strip beds and rooms, give ice water.

diane227, LPN, RN · Jan 10, 2009

Med surg nursing makes you multi purpose and it requires you to have exceptional organizational skills and a certain body of knowledge as you will have patients with all types of illnesses. Med surg nurses are responsible for the usual stuff such and meds and assessments but they are also responaible to be the eyes and ears for the physician when the physician is not available. You are responsible to recognize changes in your patient and have enough knowledge to know when to notify someone. It requires constant assessment. You must know how to take care of patients who are post surgery and what to look for if the patients status changed. It requires that you make split second decisons. You have to know A LOT about medications. Certainly there are other duties that involve general patient care but overall, the above that I have mentioned is what you are responsible for. And don't forget documentation, as complete and consice as possible. I feel badly for some of the people that responded. It sounds like their skills are not being put to very good use.